I am not sure whether there are many good texts which deal with Christ's prophecy of his Passion - suggestions would be welcome. Singing a 'passion tide' hymn seems not quite to be the same, such as When I survey or My song is love unknown. All that is hidden is a possibility but as we were unaccompanied and it would be new to 1 or 2 it was discounted.

In the end I went in an opposite direction and went for the Servant Song which I hoped captured something of the truth of relationships in the Gospel. There was also an element of stewardship, which I think is another one of those skills referred to last week, it will be sung at the Academic Mass next week and so may prove more familiar to some at that point.

I did want to pick up the image of children in the Gospel and wondered about a setting of Psalm 130(131). The Walker setting was dismissed as again possibly unsustainable unaccompanied. I had suggested the Deiss My soul is longing for your peace but circumstances in the week meant I was not able to follow this through. Looking at the readings again I went for Christ our peace.

A final comment about the psalm response which is one of those I find too short - again is this a shared view?

The moment of recognition and the turning point of the Gospel. A suitable response seemed to be the canticle from Philippians and this was the source text not only for the final hymn but also for the verses between the John Bell chant He became poor.

I find it odd that Praise to the holiest is a hymn I find difficult to shorten whereas At the name of Jesus can be happily chopped to 1, 3, 5, 7 and still make sense. As i mentioned a couple of weeks ago I am interested about people's expectations of meaning - whether that it is in the text itself or in its function. I expect the two to interelate - that is part of what liturgy does interpret or add meaning through function. I suspect that for many who do not have this interest surface level function is enough - we sing something at the opening and we have sung something and so the function is fulfilled. The same may apply to prayers. I think there are levels of nuance. To come at the question from another direction my guess is that many people in a similar position to me that hymn x would work well as an opening but not closing - something about function and flow. With these two hymns my what, instinct, knowledge, skill? says this way round - though I can conceive of Praise to the holiest at the end of Mass. I think this way round was partly musical, Camberwell is slightly more rousing and outward facing, similarly the text of At the name of Jesus has something of a response to the question 'who do you say that I am?' and follows the gospel (even reminds us) and send us out for the week.

Behind this is the question 'my what, instinct, knowledge, skill?' or a situation which I am sure familiar to many when face why can't we just sing x or y how do you communicate craft when it is not seemingly apparent to the other person nor be the liturgical terrorist either - you may need people's skills as well! I suppose part of the raison for this blog is to say this is not random, there may be method in the perceived madness.

Our changeover continues with the Gloria. We had another reunion group in again — and again they sang responded well. The Song of the Man born blind is a song of healing and so there was a connection but it also sound well unaccompanied with close harmony.

It's a year since we began using the new translation for the Order of Mass. We had a alumni group in celebrating 50 years - one of the qualities they have is keen participation - you can certainly hear the responses. As we begin September our Mass setting begins to change. There did not seem to be any hesitation in the Mass of Creation.

The alumni also wanted to sing Panis angelicus and Ave Maris Stella. The confidence exhibited in responses also can mean a certain myopia to a regular congregation. It had been suggested that we would sing Ave Maris Stella after the final hymn gathering round the icon of Mary given by the Pope. I realised that I viewed the hymn differently to the group - that the words had a specific meaning; to the group the meaning was that they had sung when they were students I am not sure the specifics of the text were relevant.